The Goa Project 2014

14 March 2014No Comment

After days of not following anything on TV, suddenly an episode of Boston Legal really rankles my inside bits. Well, actually, a bit that I will take out of context, just for fun, where the loony, and sometimes insightful, character of Denny Crane goes:

I don’t know what tribe you are from but this is America.

Human Rights are so yesterday here. Get with the program

As much as one would mark the irony out there, given that no one else screams ‘Human Rights’ as much as America’s Conquer-the-World-with-Democratic-Values- (but oh, we just really want your resources)-Agenda , therein lies its hypocrisy as well.

What applies to one, doesn’t apply to the other.

What is for one, is not for the other.

And in conversation with a friend, where I thought it apt to just be quiet and absorb, about how different kinds of politics, with respect to the Indian context (be it caste, religion, race, gender, wealth etc), are vested in segregation and discrimination.

All because of the purpose it serves- that of power…..

and not-so-strangely, the sadistic pleasure derived from that.

And I begin to wonder if it is a loosing battle we, the activists, face- to try and equalize the imbalance.

What hope may be there? What do does one cling to?

At such a point, one pulls out another memory plate, that was brought to oneself by pop culture again, of Dylan Thomas.

It has been over a month since The Goa Project 2014 took place. I can’t decide if it was sheer laziness on my part or I just got caught up in those million other things that needed my desperate attention.Ah, yes, I hear them,too- excuses, excuses!!

To begin with, it was a plain nutsy, scientist-meet-designer, designer-meet-hazaar-entrepeneurs, everyone-meets-everyone causes the idea-clash-idea kinda project. It was super intense- meeting all these new ones, talking, trailing the length and breadth of Stonewater Resort, so much conversation, having such focused attention that I am surprised that we didn’t have popped-out eyeballs rolling around, soaking in all these new ideas and experiences and then venting it out through the monkey-chicken dance form…

To say it was a mind-numbing experience was, perhaps, putting it lightly- it seemed to have drained me out of the will to speak and connect with people for the weeks to follow. But in a good way, it was a pretty darn good hangover, if one must say so.

Even though the project officially for two days, it was an affair that began six months prior. Calls, discussions, con-calls, new team-members on board, planning, taking charge, getting the wheel turning- around 30 of us had an exclusive role, though as projects like this go- it was definitely over 100 people making it happen. In this little systems of cogwheels, part of my efforts was diverted towards bring folks together for the ‘Society’ track.

I kept it simple- One had something to say, One is ‘doing the talk’- and One was effecting change, in small or big ways, for the greater good.

The eventual running theme seemed to be that of the question of rights: rights to education, rights to information, rights to space, rights to the legality of love, rights to nutrition, rights to and of your bodies…